By Curtis Shanks, PWTorch Specialist

Happy New Year, and welcome to the last Under the Microscope of 2009. This is not a detailed recap of the show, but a review for those of you who saw the show but didn't actually "watch" it. We're here to point out the little tidbits you may have missed, make some random observations, or use a little research to dig deeper into what was on the show. Cue the opening pyro.

New concept, new match-ups

Along with the best of 2009 countdown, the main theme for this week was the Knockouts tournament to crown a new number one contender. Most of the Knockouts in the tournament have faced each other before, but mainly due to various multi-person matches in the past - not one-on-one matches. Aside from Awesome Kong vs. Daffney in June 2008 (Daffney's debut), I can find no other instances of one of the first round matches having occurred on TNA TV or PPV before.

She did not show great "dignitude"

Madison Rayne was not successful in her first round match, but Velvet Sky was confident the result would be different for her. She credited Rayne with softening up Hamada to face her later, citing the "strategery" involved. While not an actual word, many are familiar with it due to Will Ferrell's impersonation of George W. Bush on SNL. Ferrell was well-known for creating many of his own Bushisms through his "impersonationizing" of the former president.

While TNA got points for referencing a pop-culture machine like SNL, they were behind the times. Many of the Bush quotes, including "strategery," aired during the 2000 Presidential race. Hard to believe, but that was almost a decade ago. TNA wasn't even born when Ferrell uttered that quote. Not the most up-to-date reference, but still better than Vince McMahon routinely mentioning events from 1997.

Maybe PPV matches should have ten minute limits too

Coming into tonight, we had been reading about TNA counting down the top ten PPV matches this year. Many places, including the TNA site, had ten matches listed. But only three were shown, as the rest were just counted down each day on the TNA website. I had a hard time believing that all ten matches would have been shown, though. Adding up the match times, we would have been in store for 2 hours and 47 minutes of wrestling from PPVs. Add in the Knockout tourney, commercial breaks, and 58 videos hyping next Monday's show, and Impact would have stretched far past the four-hour block already set aside.

Six degrees of Kevin Bacon

With the Knockouts getting their own show this week, a couple of new faces were added to the fray to face Sarita and Taylor. April Hunter was recognizable to many, whether it be for her days as an NWO valet in WCW, her handful of TNA appearances during the early years, or her appearance in Playboy. Her partner, Lorelei Lee may be recognized by fans of Simmer DVDs or other women's independent promotions. While both faces were fairly new to the at-home viewer, they did have a lot of ties to the talents they share the ring with in TNA.

During her time in World Xtreme Wrestling, Hunter formed a tag team with Nikki Roxx (Roxxi) called The Killer Babes. She also has tag experience with Talia Madison (Velvet Sky) in Women's Extreme Wrestling, as the two formed a team known as T & A. (Sorry, no Prince Albert in this group.) The duo not only won the promotion's tag titles, but they also faced each other for the heavyweight title down the line. Aside from those two TNA talents, Hunter also has independent experience facing the likes of Sarita and Traci Brooks.

Lorelei Lee has appeared on a number of Shimmer DVD releases, many of them with her associated with TNA talent. She has formed a tag team with Ashley Lane (Madison Rayne) and faced Roxxi and Awesome Kong. There is also a Shimmer appearance against Rain, better known to TNA fans as Peyton Banks, the former valet of Robert Roode. The current face version of Roode is nothing to complain about, but these memories make me long for another go-round of the total a-hole promos that he was so fantastic at before the formation of Beer Money.

I could have watched 20 more minutes

Match number two in the top three countdown was the classic Joe vs. Daniels vs. Styles encounter from Turning Point. The match was amazing the first time around, and pretty dang awesome the second time through. Kudos to TNA for not cutting out large chunks of the match, despite the nearly 22 minutes of match time. That seems like a good amount of wrestling, but it was still only the sixth longest PPV match in TNA this year.

Wolfe and Angle take top billing with their match earlier in the month, which clocked in at over 26 minutes. For comparison purposes, the first round of Styles vs. Joe vs. Daniels at Unbreakable in 2005 was only a minute longer than their bout this year, clocking in at just under 23 minutes.

How could we forget

With the top three countdown over and seven more matches listed on the TNA website, I couldn't help but look through 2009 thinking of some of the other matches that could have easily made the list. Shelley vs. Sabin back in January for the X Title was a classic. The Ultimate X match from Destination X and the X Division King of the Mountain match in June featured a good share of crazy spots. And you can't forget Styles vs. Daniels or Angle vs. Wolfe from just two weeks ago. But picking top matches from the year is too easy. How about a look at the year's bottom five?

Drum roll please. It's time for the countdown of the worst PPV matches by TNA in 2009. Booker vs. Shane Sewell last February clocks in at number five. Number four is Abyss vs. Matt Morgan in an eye-rolling Doomsday Chamber of Blood match. Next on the list is Kong vs. Sojo Bolt for the KO Title last March, followed by Hernandez defeating Rob Terry in five seconds at Hard Justice. And taking the top spot, by unanimous decision, is the farce that was Jenna Morasca vs. Sharmell from the Victory Road PPV. Here's hoping that 2010 makes it extremely difficult for me to create another list of this type.

Cream of the crop

Everyone has their own opinions on TNA's top PPV matches this year, but you could view the top ten listed by TNA as the one's those in the company view as the best. Looking at their ten choices, there are some interesting numbers and factoids associated with the matches.

- Only five of the twelve PPVs from this year had a match listed.
- Five were some sort of gimmick match, but only one of those was in the top five.
- Only four were the actual main event of a PPV card.
- Kurt Angle took top billing with four matches. His MEM cohorts, Nash, Steiner, and Booker, were not involved in a single one.

Numbers crunch - Year-end wins and losses

Wins and losses matter in wrestling, but not as much as they should. With DQ finishes, the losers often times look like winners and the winners look like losers. Announcers always mention things like "that's still a win in the record book," but I doubt such a book even exists. So let's look at all the results from this past year and find out just who was the best and the worst according to the "record book."

Tallying up all the official wins and losses from TV and PPV across WWE and TNA, we get some surprising names on the leader boards. Here are the results for wins, loses and total matches in the two promotions for all TV and PPV matches in 2009 before tonight.

WWE Matches:
Chris Jericho - 81
C.M. Punk - 70
John Morrison - 66

WWE Wins:
John Morrison - 39-26-1
John Cena - 38-18-5
Christian - 35-23-1

WWE Losses:
Chris Jericho - 34-45-2
Chavo Guerrero - 6-36
C.M. Punk - 34-35-1

TNA Matches:
Kurt Angle - 42
Robert Roode - 41
Matt Morgan - 39

TNA Wins:
James Storm - 23-14
Robert Roode - 23-18
A.J. Styles - 22-15-1

TNA Losses:
Chris Sabin - 10-26
Madison Rayne - 4-22
Jay Lethal - 6-20 and Creed 5-20

Other interesting names with lopsided records not on the leader boards include Mick Foley (5-12-1), Mike Knox (4-27), Sheamus (18-4-1), and The Undertaker (21-7-1). Not every match has a winner and loser. Sometimes we get the cheap "no result what-so-ever" finish. Tops in those match results are Kurt Angle with six and John Cena and Triple H with five each.

Curtis Shanks is a self-described wrestling nerd who, contrary to popular belief, does have a social life. Feedback is welcome as comments, suggestions and questions can be sent to Curtis at curtisshanks.torch@gmail.com.

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